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Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

bbc.com

101–110 of 658 posts

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#101
post #62
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had a religious ruling on the range, and they also had a religious ruling on "not creating an atomic bomb." The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some Ayatollas is still standing, as these rulings can apparently be changed or bypassed.

This "religious ruling" stuff is less interesting than it sounds. To begin with, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a totalitarian state, the Twelver Shia hierarchy isn't unified. The supposed ban on nuclear weapons was Khamenei's, and binding only on his followers. But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?), with significant followings even in the security state & IRGC (al-Sistani being a good example). M…

> But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?)

Wikipedia has romanized: [singular] marji'; plural marāji'.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#102
post #77
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "religious ruling" stuff is less interesting than it sounds. To begin with, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a totalitarian state, the Twelver Shia hierarchy isn't unified. The supposed ban on nuclear weapons was Khamenei's, and binding only on his followers. But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?), with significant followings even in the security state & IRGC (al-Sistani being a good example). M…

Your in-depth knowledge of completely random things never ceases to amaze me.

I'm Catholic and Twelver Shiism is the closest thing Islam has to Catholicism. It's a really neat system.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#103
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran has always said a lot of things (mostly BS). This is worthless without evidence and I don't think anyone had evidence that their missiles were restricted to 2,000km. Certainly, I don't think anyone took their word for it. In fact this attack proves that there was no such limitation (although it is unclear to me if the missiles fired could actually jave reached Diego Garcia). Now this may be a demonstration and v…

> On the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened Iran have been attacking uninvolved NATO member Turkey for a while now and nothing happens. The USA is already fully engaged into this war while Europe can hardly deal together with Russia, it is doubtful they'd do anything even if it rained down on their territory

[deleted]

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#104
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran is fighting for survival, Israel and the US are fighting by choice. They attacked Iran not the other way round. US bases, even if also used by UK which aides US it their war, are legitimate targets. US imperialism is the greatest threat to the world.

[flagged]

Or maybe you could ask yourself why people chant this. Maybe people don't fancy your mass murder of their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Maybe Iran didn't appreciate the US supporting Saddam Hussein to fight a war against Iran where he used chemical weapons against the population.

The might be a reason the whole region hates Israel and the US. Just saying.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#105
post #65

Can we just leave countries alone, like we do with North Korea?

The reason people leave North Korea alone is because they have nuclear weapon(s)

So we can only reach stalemate once a country has nukes and otherwise have to start blowing up their schools?

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#106
post #76
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Iran's missiles are used as a terror weapon against civilian population They've also sucessfuly been used against energy and military infrastructure.

Those were mostly UAVs, you can see the abysmal aiming ability in Israel, where they have largely stopped aiming at facilities and moved to cluster warheads to maximize civilian hit ratio in large metropolis

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#107
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

that would be stupid and their regime is not stupid

Hardly, after attacking all their friends in the region, which would leave them even more isolated after the war, I would not attribute careful strategic planning either

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#108
post #89
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran did the same before the conflict in response to prior Israeli attacks - the two drone waves they sent that were intercepted were both demonstrations of capability, not actual attacks. Unfortunately I’m not sure their current audience is gonna pick up the implied threat.

How do you know their intentions? It's also a bit unreasonable to launch live munitions that have some 90% probability of being intercepted by a given system on a good day, while intending for "just a warning"

It’s more like if David and Goliath are in a standoff

David takes a small rock and whips it at a sensitive spot on Goliath’s ankles that most people don’t know about (Diego Garcia)

David knows Goliath will probably dodge it, and most likely kick it away given it’s importance, but there’s a point being made by shooting: if it hits then that’s a win, but if gets knocked down it’s a warning that they know where they need to hit for it to hurt

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#109

Accusing Iran of "lashing out" and being "reckless" by attacking US bases while the US and Israel literally murder school children, bomb hospitals and assassinate state leaders is rich. It didn't have to be this way but they decided this to turn into a fight of survival for Iran and destroy any option for a peaceful resolution. Now they are going to pay the price.

Your comment made me realise that while Iran has attacked a dozen countries, they have yet to attack a school or a hospital.

Not condoning anyone but shows the priority of both sides.

Re: Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

#110
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't have to take their word for it. It was self-evident from the fact they never did anything like this before, and now they are. Notably, the previous guy issued a religious decree against the development of nuclear weapons. Despite American's favorite propaganda tool for manufacturing consent, "but the WMDs", we have no reason to believe that was ever actually being violated. But you'd better believe it will…

Do the missiles Iran has been raining down on other countries for decades not count as WMDs?

AFAICT, not by any commonly accepted definition of WMD:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction#Def...

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